1986 was the first Joint University Conference on Clinical and Theoretical Optometry. This annual meeting, which went on for more than 20 years, was cosponsored with Pacific University and was designed to meet two primary objectives. One was to improve the connection between optometric educators and practicing clinicians. The second was to encourage and develop a cadre of new leaders among the profession.
This meeting proved very fruitful as at one point every member of the OEPF board was an alumnus of the meeting. Meetings between Paul Harris, Bob Hohendorf, and Robin Lewis, which began at early JUCTCO’s led to the formation of what became the Clinical Curriculum and, later, to the restoration of the RCS program. NOTE: A common joke was that JUCTCO stood for Jimmy C Tumblin & Company as the conference was originally based on one of his ideas.